A chartered bus will take us to a private home in Southampton. It boasts one of the best collections of 19th-century Aesthetic Movement paintings, ceramics and furnishings in the area and is rarely open to the public. From there we go to East Hampton for lunch. In the afternoon, we will have a guided tour […]

On July 1, 1893, President Grover Cleveland boarded a friend’s yacht, sailed into the calm blue waters of Long Island Sound and disappeared. The events of the next five days were so incredible that even when the truth was revealed, many Americans simply would not believe it. Matthew Algeo, author of The President is a […]

Photo by Jim Henderson.   Join us for a trolley tour of The Woodlawn Cemetery, a 400-acre destination in the northern part of the Bronx. Designed by James C. Sidney in the rural style on rolling hills, the nonsectarian cemetery opened during the Civil War in 1863. The ceremonial burial there of Admiral David Farragut […]

Maria Bonfati in the Black Crook. Oil on Canvas. ca. 1866. “Treading the boards” is a colloquial theatrical expression that refers to the wooden planks of the stage upon which performers ply their trade. Dr. Matthew Wittmann, curator of the Harvard Theatre Collection at Hougton Library, will highlight a simple but signficant point – much […]

Saturday, November 10, 2 p.m.                                                                     Weeksville blossomed as one of the first free black communities in America, just a bit over a […]

Victorian times were all about the suppression of anything salacious, as Alice Sparberg Alexiou, author of the new book, Devil’s Mile: The Rich, Gritty History of the Bowery, will explain. The era’s prudery just increased the urge to experience sex and weirdness—all commodities then were readily available on the Bowery. This is where the action […]

Nancy Rosin, president of the National Valentine Collectors Association, has made a “passionate obsession” for more than 40 years out of historical love and friendship cards, keepsakes and related ephemera. Her lecture will reveal the visual and structural wonders of Victorian Valentines. Surfaces were richly textured with gilded lace and high-relief embossing, and cards were […]

Margot Gayle with the Jefferson Market Courthouse. Margot Gayle Fund for Preservation of Victorian Heritage Applications are due February 14, 2019. Find out more and apply for a 2019 Margot Gayle Fund grant.

The Victorian Society in America Presents A Summer Schools Evening* “Oscar Wilde's Valentine for America: 1882 Lecture Tour” A lecture by Richard Guy Wilson Director, VSA Newport Summer School and Commonwealth Professor of Architectural History, University of Virginia FREE Friday, February 15th, 6:00 PM The Bob and Sheila Hoerle Lecture Hall The New School University […]

The American Kennel Club has a new museum devoted to dogs. On our museum tour, we will learn how 19th-century artists immortalized humans’ best friends with portraiture and sculpture as well as what a dog’s life was like in Victorian times— how animals were bred, trained, housed and shown. We will also see how owners’ […]

When New Yorkers utter the phrase “Cooper Hewitt,” it typically brings to mind the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, housed in Andrew Carnegie’s mansion on 91st Street and Fifth Avenue. Far less renowned are the institution’s 19th-century women patrons, who made their family names synonymous with achievements in art and design. Sue Shutte, the historian […]

This lecture is co-sponsored with and will be held at The General Society of Mechanics & Tradesmen.  20 WEST 44TH STREET, BETWEEN 5TH AND 6TH AVENUES RECEPTION AT 6:00 LECTURE AT 6:30 Julie Dobrow, a Tutts University professor, will speak about the mixed-up Victorian sensibilities and fascinating lives of Mabel Loomis Todd, Emily Dickinson’s first […]

This lecture will be held at Sotheby’s Institute, 570 Lexington Avenue (51st Street). On May 2, at the Victorian Society New York's annual Emerging Scholars event, young historians will shed light on little-appreciated aspects of 19th-century culture. During the free lectures (6 to 8 pm with reception, Sotheby's Institute of Art, 570 Lexington Avenue at 51st Street), Christine Garnier […]

The first stop on this bus tour will be Cold Spring, where an iron foundry operated from 1811-1911 supplying artillery to the West Point Military Academy across the Hudson River. A talk about the town's history will be followed by free time to explore its historic district before lunch at the Hudson House, an inn […]